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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538382">Redo</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/racheljessop/pseuds/racheljessop'>racheljessop</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Far Cry 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, F/F, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia Implied, rating mostly for drug stuff at the beginning fyi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:29:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,611</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538382</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/racheljessop/pseuds/racheljessop</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tracey remembers her first kiss with Faith.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tracey Lader/Faith Seed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Redo</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>"Jessie" in fic is my dep OC, hope this oneshot will be a backdrop to her story eventually &lt;3. and yes i'm using that mitski song i'm cliche.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <em>And I know I've kissed you before, but </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I didn't do it right </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Can I try again, try again, try again </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Try again, and again, and again </em>
</p><p>
  <em>And again, and again, and again?</em>
</p><p><em> - </em>Pink in the Night by Mitski </p><hr/><p>
  <em> Tracey wasn’t sure if Faith remembered the first time they kissed.  </em>
</p><p>She was Rachel then, and they both had a pharmacy’s share of substances racing through their systems, along with the better part of a liquor cabinet for good measure. </p><p>Tracey’s vision was a blur of colors from the tacky Christmas lights covering the cracked and peeling walls of their group home, orbs of light glowing out and obscuring all the busy bodies of the cramped living room except the girl beside her with the honey colored hair. Music blasted from the speakers, but the bubbling sound of her best friend’s laughter was the melody Tracey swayed and bobbed her head to as she sat on the floor beside her, nursing her drink. </p><p>The cacophony of chatter was a low buzz in her head with stray words occasionally sticking to her brain for her to process the gist of a conversation. She had a vague awareness that the girls behind her were discussing which musical festivals were overrated and the guys sitting on the couch were contemplating the oppressive nature of monogamy. She was mostly aware of Rachel’s beaming smile as she nodded and agreed with whatever portion of the conversation she happened to catch, and any verbal ability Tracey had left was being spent on trying to find the right word to describe how beautiful it was.  </p><p>She was not aware her fingertips had found their way to brush against golden hair until a random partygoer shouted directly to the pair, “Hey, you two should kiss!” Hitting Tracey with sudden awareness and causing her to pull her hand back as if amber locks were bright and hot enough to burn her. Rachel’s smile lowered slightly, and her eyes widened and darted to Tracey as if looking for guidance. </p><p>“C’mon, knock it off,” Tracey mumbled, unsure how discernibly. </p><p>“Seriously, kiss!” Another voice joined in, and Tracey could feel the adrenaline pump in waves to join the amalgam of other chemicals rushing through her veins, making her chest feel tight. </p><p>“Kiss, it’d be so hot!” </p><p>Rachel giggled again and bowed her head to lean towards Tracey, as if pushed forward by her own twinkling laughter. “Should we?” She asked, crinkling her nose with a playful smile. </p><p>“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” The crowd chanted, making Tracey’s head buzz and feel numb until she felt Rachel’s arms around her neck, and it seemed again like they were the only two people in the room as she pulled her closer, hand along the small of her back, until their lips finally touched. </p><p>It felt like warmth traveled through Tracey’s entire body from the contact of her lips, spreading across her skin and relaxing every tensed muscle. She wrapped her arm around the girl’s waist, pulling her closer to climb into her lap in a clamber of shifting legs, knocking over a drink at their side without a care as she settled there. </p><p>Tracey felt sudden desperation to connect every part of them, opening her mouth to slide her tongue along the other girl’s, taste and texture and every other sensation blending together in what felt like jolts of electricity through her body. </p><p>The crowd had seemed to lose interest by the time Rachel finally pulled back, panting breaths continuing to fall into her mouth from their closeness, followed by more giggles. She trailed the tips of her fingers along Tracey’s face delicately before resting them on her lips, brushing back and forth along the place she’d just kissed. “Soft, your lips are so soft. So nice,” she mumbled, closing her eyes serenely and leaning in again, Tracey preparing to be kissed once more when the blonde’s head darted suddenly to the side and her entire body tensed in her arms, harsh retching sounds hitting her ears as the girl emptied the contents of her stomach onto the floor beside her. </p><p>“Fuck,” Tracey muttered, scooting herself to the side of the mess and pulling the wobbly body in her arms with her, too tired and foggy to bother thinking about actually cleaning it up. “It’s okay, lay on your side,” she said while lifting the girl off her lap and holding her up as she shifted back, then lowering her head to rest back in her now freed lap. </p><p>It was the last thing Tracey could remember doing before waking up in the same position, but with rays of sun beating against her aching eyes and her fingers buried in the locks of hair she found just as golden and beautiful and warm as the sunlight streaming in. She pulled her fingers through the soft waves, greeted with a grumble and a burying of the girl’s face further into her lap. She sighed contentedly at this before looking up to take stock of the living room, noting a few other unconscious bodies, and two conscious ones huddled together over a tray of something Tracey’s eyes were still too tired to make out. </p><p>“Mornin’,” Tracey mumbled to the men now staring at her. She tried her best to make out their faces. She’d seen them around, but they weren’t members of their group. Definitely didn’t live there, although if Tracey was being honest people came and went so much she couldn’t be sure. </p><p>“Morning,” the man on the right parroted back, the unfamiliar voice finally causing the girl in Tracey’s lap to stir and rise with an incoherent mumble, trying to steady herself before resting her head against her friend again, this time on her shoulder. </p><p>“Hey, I gotta question. Are you girls actually gay? Like really together? Like gay together?” The man on the left chattered out in a quick jumble, Rachel jerking her head back to sit in a straight line with her now rigid spine as he did. </p><p>“Don’t be silly,” Rachel spat out with too much firmness before relaxing and pushing out bursts of laughter to fill the room, the men slowly joining her to create a harmony of mingling laughter that seemed to drive the pounding in Tracey’s head until it traveled down her neck and chest to a hard, swirling ache in her stomach and it was her turn to throw her head to the side and vomit.</p><p>“Whoa,” one of the guests remarked as Tracey lifted her head and continued to cough, throat burning and too tight to swallow enough air. “Hey, do you guys need like, a reup?” He asked, and Tracey opened her eyes again to see him holding up a syringe, apparently thinking the pair’s propensity for regurgitation was withdrawal related. As much as she’d kill to have something to numb her right now, they stayed away from anything that hard, and she shook her head before burying it in her lap. </p><p>“I’ll try some,” soprano voice chirped beside her while its owner crawled across the dirty and uneven hardwood floor to them, and Tracey lifted her head to watch paralyzed as her friend offered her arm for one of the men to pull a rubber tourniquet tight around and push a needle into, and she swore she could feel it stab straight through her heart too as they did. </p><p>It was a few days before the stabbing feeling in Tracey’s chest was too much to take, and she took to piercing through the veins running along her arms too. Then a void of a weeks or maybe months until they sat at the dining room table surrounded by the rest of the members of their collective in an intervention session that turned into an eviction notice, then a few hours after that until they were taking their meager chunk of the security deposit to spend on “just enough” powder to get them through a few days of bummed rides to the mountains of Montana to detox, and then a few weeks after that until she was clear minded enough to realize she was losing Rachel to something even more powerful and dangerous than the needle, and then a few months of desperate letters after that until she didn’t hear a word more from Rachel, or Faith. And then years and years of being unable to sleep at night because she was too full of regret for bringing her here, for not stopping her the first time she stuck a needle in her arm, for ever kissing her in the first place. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em> Tracey wasn’t sure if Faith was real the second time they kissed.  </em>
</p><p>She practically still had the taste of the cute girl she’d met at the Spread Eagle the prior night on her lips as she wandered up to the gardens of the Jessop property. She honestly wasn’t sure she could remember the woman’s name, or much of what she’d prattled on about, save for her whispering to Tracey that she’d heard rumors the cult had taken over the old conservatory out by the Henbane and was doing some crazy botanical experiments there, maybe even headed by Faith Seed herself. (Had Tracey heard of her? No? Really?)</p><p>And the “good morning &lt;3” text she got the next day didn’t fill Tracey with any lingering infatuation, but it did cause the morbid curiosity as to the truth of the rumor to creep back into her mind and envelop her like vines climbing and twisting along a garden wall, until she couldn’t resist the urge to check things out. </p><p>From a distance, the property still looked abandoned, the type of place local kids would tell ghost stories about and maybe even risk trespassing to explore, daring each other to go into the boarded up house or throw rocks at the dirty glass of the old greenhouse. Certainly the type of place that would inspire creepy rumors. But as Tracey drove her truck up the dirt road leading to the property, the gardens did look recently tended to, vibrant green showing through the frosted glass windows of the greenhouse and neat lines of plants with flowering white trumpets sitting beneath the arches of the row covers. </p><p>“Hello?!” Tracey called out as she slammed the door of her vehicle, looking around for any sign of life that wasn’t sprouting from soil. “Hey, anyone here?” She called again before stepping over onto the property line. The towering manor still looked too abandoned to bother knocking on the door, so she set straight to checking out the gardens. </p><p>The pungent floral perfume of the place did not take long to hit Tracey’s nose, making her head feel just woozy enough to question if she’d had too much at the bar last night after all. As she got closer, her vision even seemed to blur at the edges, milky wisps floating and swirling at the corners of her eyes as they focused on the almost blinding bright white flowers spurting from the ground in cones with hypnotizing curves and peaks of petals that drew her eyes to the tiny white stalks bursting from the center. </p><p>She couldn’t be sure how long exactly she stared in a fog of dissociation at the flowers before she bent down, as if in trance, to pick one from its place in the soil with a snap of the firm green stem, filling her lungs with the intoxicating fumes that made her feel as if mind was a cloud floating along to carry her body through its movements. </p><p>Her bubble of serenity was popped by a small giggle, whimsical and light enough to sound like a child, or something, someone from her memory, maybe even… Tracey snapped back to attention and tried to shake the thought from her head, quickly jerking her head to the direction of the laughter, which was… Up? </p><p>“Shit!” Tracey cursed and stumbled backwards. Perched atop the archway covering the flowerbeds was, unmistakably, Rachel herself, dressed in a short white frock embroidered with the faintest coils of shimmering gold dancing along lace, pale pink flowers that looked as fresh and alive as the one in Tracey’s fist dotting along the waistline, down to the hem that rested along the woman’s shapely thighs. Her exposed legs and bare feet swung back and forth playfully as she leaned forward to look down, hair falling slightly over her smiling face as she did. </p><p>“Rachel?! How the fuck did you get up there?!” Another giggle floating through the air, although if Tracey didn’t know better she’d swear it came from behind her rather than from the woman in front of her. </p><p>“I must not have introduced myself,” she said in voice as airy and saccharin as the scent of the flowers, “My name is Faith.” </p><p>“Whatever you want to be called now, just get the fuck down from there, that shit does not look sturdy.” </p><p>She laughed like Tracey had told the funniest joke she’d ever heard, and it echoed through the whole garden, seeming to rise up from the ground to the heavens like the perfume of the flowers. </p><p>“I don’t think I can fall, I feel so light and free,” She threw her head back and drew in a deep breath, sighing out with a hum before quickly drawing her legs back in single fluid motion to straighten and stand on the spindly metal of the arches, stretching her arms to the sides to balance before shifting to lean on one foot, then the other. “Do you feel heavy, Tracey?” She asked, leaning forward with her weight on her left foot while her right was pointed behind her in the air. </p><p>“How the fuck are you doing that?” Tracey demanded, squinting and blinking eyes to try to make sense of the picture in front of her. There was no way the cover should have supported her weight. </p><p>“Faith.” She answered simply. </p><p>“Yeah, I got the name.” </p><p>More laughter in a voice that was undeniably Faith’s but seemed to come from every direction but the girl’s mouth, bursting from the gardens as if the flowering cones of the plants were tiny phonographs that broadcast the sound from their center, disorienting Tracey and making her cast her gaze down as if she could look and locate the source of the amplified giggles. </p><p>When she looked back up she swore was a split second later, the girl was gone, and before she could process how and where she could have moved she felt slender arms wrapped around her waist, and soft lips pressed against and speaking directly into her ear, so close it now felt like the voice was coming from her own mind. “No silly, I <em> have </em> faith. It eases my burdens and makes me light enough to <em> float </em>. Don’t you want to have Faith, Tracey?” </p><p>The hand at her waist trailed up, ghosting under her shirt and brushing fingertips against her stomach, raising goosebumps along her skin. </p><p>“What the fuck are you talking about?” She responded, too stunned to pull away. And the girl moved without actually moving, like she <em> was </em> floating through the air, passing straight through Tracey like a ghost until the next thing she knew she wasn’t cradling her back, but standing right in front of her, nose to nose. </p><p>“I know you’ve always wanted me,” the blonde whispered, her breath so warm tingling against Tracey’s lips that it felt for a moment like their lips were already touching, and Tracey had to take stock of the millimeters of distance still between them, “Why don’t you just give in?” She taunted. </p><p>Tracey searched her jumble of racing thoughts and sensations for answer, each justification eclipsed by how <em> right </em> the girl’s body felt pressed into hers, and how right their lips were sure to feel as well locking into place together.</p><p>She couldn’t even say when hot breath turned into blushing flesh and they were kissing, really kissing, but she knew she’d craned her neck forward of her own volition until it happened. </p><p>Everything that Tracey had been missing was in that kiss, feeling life from another person who had no other drive in the world but to press closer into her. She’d kissed and fucked so many girls since her first awkward makeout with Rachel, but it’d been so long, so long since she really felt <em> life </em>from it. Every neuron in her body fired off to tell her to chase that feeling further, to keep kissing her until they were one, and suddenly Tracey felt content, satisfied, like there was no more of the girl left to discover and she could stay here forever. She savored one last soft drag of her lips against Faith’s as she pulled back. </p><p>Tracey furrowed her brow, “Because it’s not really... you.” She stuttered it out, like it was an answer recited from a textbook that confused even her, and the body she’d held dissipated as she said it, disappearing in the mist while her arms were still outstretched to hold her. </p><p>“I know the difference,” she said, casting her eyes to the ground as she spoke, disappointment showing in hazel depths as she shuffled back to her car with hands in her pockets, looking like she was leaving a bad party. </p><p>She sat in her truck with her head pressed against the steering wheel until her head felt clear enough to drive again, letting the fields fade into the background behind her until she was walking up to her apartment and collapsing in her bed, drifting back to unconsciousness. Tracey had cut out most drugs ever since her first week detoxing with Eden’s Gate, but it was after that experience she swore off of anything harder than a few puffs of weed. She would have thought the entire memory was a hangover induced anxiety dream if she hadn’t found the crumpled white flower in her jacket pocket the next morning. </p><p>She dried it and hung it on her wall. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em> Tracey wasn’t sure if Faith was alive the third time they kissed.  </em>
</p><p>She didn’t know how long she’d been running through fields and fields of bliss flowers, which always seemed to stretch endlessly when caught in their aromatic pull, when she finally happened upon the pond where the girl floated still and weightless like a lily pad, looking almost serene with golden hair fanning out to frame her bloodied face like a halo, and yanked her out with a splash, pulling her back to lay in the grass. </p><p>And deciding what action to take next from the racing streams of conflicting thoughts in Tracey’s head would have been hard enough without the Deputy crying and yelling in the background, unclear if to Tracey or to herself, rocking back and forth and hugging herself as she stuttered out, “I-I didn’t mean for it to fucking happen like this, I didn’t mean… I swear to God she was fucking floating in the air, fucking flying, I thought she was going to <em> kill </em>me and…” </p><p>Tracey took a deep breath. <em> Breathe Tracey. </em> Breathing. Step one is always check their breathing. </p><p>“...I don’t know what it was but it hurt. I d-don’t even know what happened, Tracey… I just fucking reacted, I don’t even know what I did! I just wanted her to st-stop, I didn’t want to kill her!” </p><p>“Well shut the fuck up for ten seconds if you want me to <em> do </em> anything about it, because <em> I </em>for one have no problem just letting her die!” Tracey turned and barked back, making the girl whimper and curl up on her side, silent tears streaming down her face. She’d consider apologizing for that later, when she moved on to treating her less immediately life threatening injuries.</p><p>For now, fingers left indents in skin waxen as clay as they dipped into the bend of her neck to feel for a pulse. Feeling nothing, she pressed her ear to Faith’s chest to listen to the overbearing silence of lungs and heart as still as the crystal clear water of the pond. So Tracey quickly replaced her head with palms against the girl’s sternum, trying to tune out the Deputy’s continued sobs to hear in her head the correct rhythm to pump arms downward. </p><p>“I-I’m sorry, I should have already thought to –” </p><p>“Shut <em> up</em>!" </p><p>Tracey turned back and muttered to herself, counting the number of times she pressed down into the woman’s chest aloud to keep her pace and drown out any cries of Jessie’s or pesky thoughts of her own that weren’t the mechanics of the procedure.</p><p>She pulled back and tried to catch her own breath best she could before grasping Faith’s chin between her fingers to tilt her head back, then pinching her nose with one hand before covering limp, lifeless lips with her own. Exhale. She pushed the air out of her lungs to try to fill the cold and motionless body beneath her with life, choking the air back in after every exhale before desperately pouring it back into the opening of her slack jaw, trying to surrender a piece of her own life to Faith’s. </p><p>She tried to pretend as she did that this was not the body of her former best friend, or the same lips she’d kissed with childish excitement years ago. She tried to imagine the girl was one of the dummies she practiced on back at the jail, an illusion that was too easy to conjure with her limbs laying uselessly inanimate at her sides and eerily smooth and flawless pallid skin stretching over doll-like features of her face, fair wisps of eyelashes kissing full, colorless cheeks. She almost looked angelic like this, beyond life or death. Something eternal. </p><p>But Tracey tried not to think about eternity either as she jammed palms back along the hard center of her chest, forcefully enough she knew if the girl lived she’d be decorated with bruises there. </p><p>It was a shitty time, she decided, leaning down to connect warm, dark blush lips with cold, pale ones, to realize she had no idea how to mourn Faith. It was an awful fucking time, pushing air through her chest and down the other woman’s supple throat, to realize she’d always held on to some little part of her, went to bed feeling comfort that she was still alive, even if it was in a maniac’s clutches. It was the worst time, life delivering breaths becoming too shaky and choking to do what little work they might have done to force the girl’s lungs to expand and contract, to realize the infamous Faith Seed was not the biggest liar in Hope County, that title belonged to Tracey Lader, for every time she claimed she’d given up, for every time she said she didn’t care, for moments ago when she’d yelled in a panic she had no problem letting her die. </p><p>Tracey didn’t realize the tears had started streaking down her cheeks until they blended with the water already soaked into pale damp skin, making it glossy once again. She was as lifeless as when she’d pulled her from the water, and Tracey’s chest felt so tight and impossible to get air into that she wondered if she was the one who had drowned. She bit her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, to focus on <em> any </em>pain but that wrenching through her heart. </p><p>She brought a shaky hand to the girl’s cold, clammy cheek, slicking back the damp curtain of golden hair stuck to her face from the moisture, pushing it back to rest against the grass, tangling between the blades. It was now as a goodbye she lowered her face to hover over the unconscious girl’s a final time, pressing trembling lips against hers and leaving them there long enough to savor a final kiss. </p><p>Her eyes were still stinging with tears as she pulled back, removing the hand she’d rested on Faith’s cheek to wipe them onto her sleeve, turning back to Jessie to give her a somber nod of finality. </p><p>The sound of the two women now openly sobbing filling the air made Tracey slow to notice a third source of wet choking noises joining the chorus, finally looking down through eyes blurry with tears to see Faith convulsing to spit up swallowed water. </p><p>Tracey quickly snapped back into triage mode, wrapping arms around the confused, whimpering girl to pull her towards her lap without a care for how the water still dripping from her form seeped into her clothes, tilting blonde head towards the ground. “It’s okay, lay on your side,” she whispered reassuringly to her, stroking her hair and running comforting fingers along her temple, along her cheeks, slowly rubbing warmth back into her face. </p><p>“Tracey?” The first coherent word she spoke, and Tracey rewarded it before she could stop herself, littering kisses all along Faith’s face. </p><p>“Yeah, it’s me,” she kissed the words into her skin like she was feeding them to the girl, anything to keep her alive. </p><p>“What are you… doing here?” The question was dazed and could have meant countless things as it fell against Tracey’s ears. Her mind conjured a  million answers in turn. <em> I’m here because I love you </em> . It would have been true. <em> I’m here because I followed the Deputy </em> . That would have been true, too, if a bit oversimplified. <em> I don’t know why I’m here, I just started running and running and running until I saw you </em> . That felt the most true, and somehow the hardest to say. </p><p>“I’m here for you,” that seemed to boil it all down to a point Tracey could articulate, something easy to mutter against the lobe of her ear as she nuzzled against the wet crook of her neck. Something that felt too heavy lingering in the air as the initial rush of relief from Faith’s recovery wore down, something Tracey wondered if she should be regretting. </p><p>“Jessie, toss me your cuffs,” Tracey shot over her shoulder, receiving a brief incredulous look in response followed by an acquiescing shrug and underhanded throw of the handcuffs. She clicked them around Faith’s delicate wrists, scooping the girl into her arms, holding her close to her chest as she carried her back to the jail. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <b>Tracey wasn’t sure if any of those times mattered the first time they kissed. </b>
</p><p>Yeah. She was going to call it the first time, not the fourth or third or even second. They got to decide what counted, and after experiencing the real thing Tracey had no problem deciding the other times that had haunted her memories didn’t <em> count </em>. </p><p>Their first kiss would be outside the King’s Hot Springs Hotel, where they sat with legs dangling off the boardwalk to dip feet into the the clear, warm pools of bright green that had always reminded Tracey of Faith’s eyes, taking a must needed rest from helping the resistance clear out the neglected old lodging to turn it into something habitable. There was new hope and livelihood filling the air in the Henbane region, with the bliss gone and Faith Seed <em> neutralized </em>, so to speak. The Cougars were expanding from their former tiny retreat, holed up in the old jailhouse, to find refuge for the displaced citizens throughout the region, including the formerly abandoned hotel the girls waited to move into. </p><p>Faith kicked her legs playfully in the pond, splashing droplets of water into the air to mix with the steam drifting from the surface. “I’m sorry you’re still stuck playing warden for me,” the blonde mused as she traced toes along the water to cut ripples through it. </p><p>Tracey shrugged nonchalantly. “Not such a bad deal, I’m the one who volunteered for it. And I’m sure you’ll have everyone talked into letting you walk around free in no time.” </p><p>Faith giggled slightly. “Or Dep will. She advocated pretty hard over notable objection for you to be allowed to be the person to guard me.” </p><p>Tracey rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I think she’s trying to set a precedent,” she noted with a scoff. </p><p>Faith turned her head with a curious smile. “Well, whatever hergame is, I’m sorry if you have any regrets now that you’re responsible looking out for me twenty-four seven.” </p><p>“Fine by me,” Tracey said, shifting her hand along the wood until it found and rested gently atop Faith’s as they sat together, “Makes up for all the years I wasn’t able to do it.” </p><p>A light pink spread along Faith’s cheeks, and Tracey wasn’t sure if it was from the touch of her hand or the steam of the hot springs. Her lips curved reassuringly, although she cast sad eyes down towards matching pools of green simultaneously. </p><p>“You know I wasn’t just an innocent victim, right? I mean, I know I <em> was </em>a victim, but I wasn’t innocent. I chose to go with him. I chose to do terrible things, Tracey. I —” </p><p>Tracey laughed, one of the most genuine laughs she’d felt shake through her chest in months, possibly years, raising the hand hovering over the blonde’s to hold her chin instead, turning her head to face her before brushing along her cheek. “What do you think I’ve been spending the past seven years trying to convince everyone else around here of?” </p><p>Faith stared open mouthed for a moment, aqua eyes once again reminding Tracey of the basin beneath them as they quivered with tears like the gentle ripples of the springs, sunlight sparkling across the watery surface as she stuttered out softly, almost incredulously, “And you still don’t hate me?” </p><p>“And I still love you,” Tracey answered, smoothly and confidently, and Faith slowly lowered her eyelids, finally pushing out a single tear to roll down along her cheek as she leaned forward and connected her lips with Tracey’s, pressing them together softly, leisurely. It was nothing like the rushed frenzies of adrenaline she’d experienced with her before, this was all gentle warmth and tenderness as she moved her lips in response to slowly deepen the connection, find the angles they fit best together, savoring the taste and the feel of her skin. It certainly <em> felt </em>like the first time, the first time she was fully aware, feeling the woman against her undiluted by the raw buzz of drugs or panic or the combination of both. She knew she hadn’t felt this slow, comforting warmth before, hadn’t taken time to appreciate how her breath tickled her face when she kissed her, hadn’t noticed the way she tasted sweet like mint, or the way she melted into Tracey’s arms when she trailed a tongue slowly across her plump bottom lip. This was definitely the first time. </p><p>It was also the first time she noticed the way Faith fluttered eyelashes over dilated pupils and stared with still half-lidded eyes as she pulled back, blushing. “I love you too, Tracey,” she murmured while wrapping black strands of silken hair around her finger absentmindedly, pressing another kiss to the tip of the girl’s nose playfully. </p><p>“I’m so glad you made it out of that shit, Faith… Rachel? What should I call you now?” Tracey snickered a little at the absurdity of the question. “I just kissed you before I even asked your name.” </p><p>The blonde pulled the hand wrapped in Tracey’s hair back to cover her mouth as she giggled at the joke, placing it back at her side and turning to stare forward along the calm, simmering waters, eyes now glinting with determination rather than tears. “Faith,” she chimed confidently, “I can’t run from my past choices anymore,” she said resolutely, lifting her head proudly for her face and hair to soak up the warm rays of the sun, “And I might not have been the first Faith Seed, but I’m going to be the fucking <em> last </em>.” </p><p>Tracey felt warmth tingle down her spine and radiate through her chest at the words, letting a wide smile crack along her face. She really was a new person, glowing determination in her eyes and voice that filled Tracey with the most hope she’d had in years, a person nothing like the desperate to please little child too afraid to ever fight or disagree Rachel had been in their youth. </p><p>Tracey was a new person too, someone who conversely didn’t feel the need to be ready for a fight all times, someone who could embrace a former enemy with loving arms and kisses along her face. </p><p>“Never thought I’d fucking say this, but I love you, Faith Seed,” she said as she pulled the girl down to lay back with her along the boardwalk, where they stayed laughing in each others arms. They found each other's lips again, sharing kisses between giggles, taking their time to vary fleeting brushes of lips and slower, deeper kisses, not noticing the sound of boots against the wooden walkway until their owner was finally close enough to interrupt them. </p><p>“Hey, get a fuckin’ room you two,” the Deputy said with a cough. “Seriously, you’ve got a room ready, second floor, third on the right.” She tossed a key their way, which Tracey snatched from the air as it flew towards her. </p><p>“Thanks,” Tracey acknowledged, tucking the key into her pocket as she straightened her legs to stand, turning back to her companion to offer her hand to her, “You ready to go, buttercup?” </p><p>Faith stood with a curtsy, all her usual grace, “I am,” she said, wrapping an arm around Tracey’s and looking up at her with adoring eyes, “Let’s go home.” And they did, walking arm in arm together into their new life.</p>
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